One version of A Christmas Carol I'd forgotten about - the Muppet Christmas Carol. We watched it last night.

Andy! HOW does this happen! lol - this one and Alastair Simms' are the only versions I watch. The Muppet "Ghost of Christmas Present" is one of my all-time favourite characters. I just plain flat-out love him to bits.

Watched Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) last night. Charming as can be Except I really don't like that "Put One Foot In Front of the Other" song. I kind of fell asleep just before the end - darned wine before dinner. Oh well I've seen it several times before. The Burgermeister Meisterburger is my fav'e character

One version of A Christmas Carol I'd forgotten about - the Muppet Christmas Carol. We watched it last night.

Andy! HOW does this happen! lol - this one and Alastair Simms' are the only versions I watch. The Muppet "Ghost of Christmas Present" is one of my all-time favourite characters. I just plain flat-out love him to bits.

Sim was the first one we watched this year. I read Ro the book, then we watched that version together.

I'm not as fond of the Muppet version, just because of some of its departures from the book. Not the changes made to accommodate the various Muppets and their shticks, but where the meaning of the story is lost. They have Scrooge disliking Christmas and being a cheapskate from childhood, rather than it being a result of his whole life's experience, which is the whole point of visiting his past. Young Scrooge complains to Fozziwig about the cost of the party, when the point of the scene is that the party is a small expense. Scrooge is supposed to remember that it was the kindness that mattered. The Marleys, as ghosts, still seem to relish their past evil deeds, instead of regretting them. Again, that's supposed to be the reason all this is happening. It's lots of little things that seem like the writers were going through the scenes without really understanding them, or at least that they cared less about the story making sense than they did about a few gags.

I tried introducing my sons (ages 5 and 10) to "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" a couple of nights ago. They thought the guy in the polar bear suit and "Torg" the robot were hilarious, and they loved the "Hooray for Santy Claus" theme song (my ten year old said "Great song... awful movie" ), but they lost interest in it long before the film was over due to its snail-like pacing.

They did come up with a cool nickname for "Voldar," the evil mustachioe'd Martian who's the villain of the piece, though... "Mustache Guy," i.e. they were constantly asking, "Where's Mustache Guy? What's Mustache Guy doing? Why does Mustache Guy hate Christmas so much?" .... I was dyin'.

Watched Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer last night. Probably my all-time favorite Christmas movie. So many memories from when I was a little kid. I especially loved Burl Ives as the snowman, and his songs are my favorites too.

Got about halfway through A Christmas Story yesterday, then stopped so we could drop over to the neighbours' for some wine and appetizers. Cheeses, smoked fish, assorted hors d'oeuvres. So much food, we skipped dinner. My daughter went through cocktail shrimp like a blue whale. Anyway, we have to finish that movie.

Also watched Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol for the first time in probably more than 30 years. Amazing how much of it actually stuck with me. I was also surprised at how much of the dialogue was taken directly from the book. There were a few changes to the story, most notably ordering the ghosts as present, past, future (not sure why they'd do that), but overall a more faithful adaptation than I'd expect from a short cartoon special.

I tried introducing my sons (ages 5 and 10) to "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" a couple of nights ago. They thought the guy in the polar bear suit and "Torg" the robot were hilarious, and they loved the "Hooray for Santy Claus" theme song (my ten year old said "Great song... awful movie" ), but they lost interest in it long before the film was over due to its snail-like pacing.

They did come up with a cool nickname for "Voldar," the evil mustachioe'd Martian who's the villain of the piece, though... "Mustache Guy," i.e. they were constantly asking, "Where's Mustache Guy? What's Mustache Guy doing? Why does Mustache Guy hate Christmas so much?" .... I was dyin'.

I usually just refer to Voldar as Elliott Gould.There's even some similarity in the accent.

I usually just refer to Voldar as Elliott Gould.There's even some similarity in the accent.

I never noticed the resemblance! It's uncanny!!!

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Also watched Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol for the first time in probably more than 30 years. Amazing how much of it actually stuck with me. I was also surprised at how much of the dialogue was taken directly from the book. There were a few changes to the story, most notably ordering the ghosts as present, past, future (not sure why they'd do that), but overall a more faithful adaptation than I'd expect from a short cartoon special.

The "Mr. Magoo" version was actually my introduction to the "A Christmas Carol" story as a kid.

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas last night. I have to admit I didn't like it all lol. The jokes were lame, just the exact same stuff we've seen a thousand times before in the Peanuts cartoons. There was a bare minimum of story, it was mostly just random skits strung together. And Charlie Brown was such a whiny loser I didn't even like him. The big "inspirational" ending was completely un-inspirational. Oh and I loved the way they were criticizing the over-commercialization of Christmas - on this DVD I paid $13 for.

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas last night. I have to admit I didn't like it all lol. The jokes were lame, just the exact same stuff we've seen a thousand times before in the Peanuts cartoons. There was a bare minimum of story, it was mostly just random skits strung together. And Charlie Brown was such a whiny loser I didn't even like him. The big "inspirational" ending was completely un-inspirational. Oh and I loved the way they were criticizing the over-commercialization of Christmas - on this DVD I paid $13 for.

Oh well, at least it was short.

It is very much structured like a series of comic strips strung together. Characters come together, set up the joke, deliver the punch line and we move on to the next three panels. My daughter gets a laugh out of the ending, because the kids somehow add a lot more tree to Charlie Brown's tree when they decorate it.

Me, I love it for nostalgia. A Charlie Brown Christmas was an annual ritual for my family when I was a kid.